


The Fake AH Crew in Colours

by undergroundmindpalace



Category: Achievement Hunter, Fake AH crew - Fandom, Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF, Roosterteeth - Fandom
Genre: Agender!Jack, Character Study, Death, Depression, Fake AH Crew, GTA, GTA AU, Gavin's POV, Gen, KindOfInLoveWithEverybody!Gavin, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 06:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4656567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undergroundmindpalace/pseuds/undergroundmindpalace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s something he’s always done; assigning colours to people. It helps him to rationalise, and understand the people around him. For example, his mother is conglomerate of all the soft pastel colours you’d find on the inside of a shell. He loves her. She worries about him." </p>
<p>Gavin uses colours to help himself understand the world around him. He finds himself surrounded by the Fake AH Crew, who in themselves are a veritable rainbow of colours. </p>
<p>This is Gavin's POV, sort of a character study thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fake AH Crew in Colours

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the creativecockbitesnetwork over on tumblr. The prompt was "colours". Send me an ask over at undergroundmindpalace if you want!

He spends his whole life trying to work out who he is. It’s a losing battle. His name is Gavin. He knows that. He likes bananas. He doesn’t like soggy bread. He’s kind of skinny. He’s not that smart. 

It’s hard to explain. It’s hard to find the words. He’s all of those things. But that’s not all he is. What is he? He doesn’t feel like anything. How is that possible? He’s a person. But he doesn’t feel like one. 

Colours. The world is full of them. 

You know what else the world is full of? People.

He’s a person. He’s also a colour. They all are. That’s how he explains it. It’s hard to find the words.

It’s something he’s always done; assigning colours to people. It helps him to rationalise, and understand the people around him. For example, his mother is conglomerate of all the soft pastel colours you’d find on the inside of a shell. He loves her. She worries about him.

Strangers are grey. The city he eventually moves to, Los Santos, is an ocean of grey, where people move like water. It’s overwhelming.

He’s still trying to figure out who he is. He doesn’t even know what colour best describes him. He tries periwinkle for a while, wears it as sadness. Then he tries crimson, and pushes everyone he loves away. He moves up and down the spectrum, becoming a rainbow of personalities.

None of them suit him. He turns transparent, as clear as water. People start to look through him. 

Until he meets a group of people who actually look at him. They’re a confusing mess, the Fake AH Crew, but it doesn’t take long for Gavin to become a firm part of this little technicolour family. One by one they go from grey, to vibrant, thrilling colour.

*

Geoff was a hard one to pinpoint. Sometimes he was red, other times purple. He, like Gavin, flicked through a range of colours. Unlike Gavin, he wore each of them incredibly well. Where Gavin is nothing he is everything.

The colour that suits him best, Gavin decides, is green; the verdant, earthy shade. It’s the colour of money, and success, and it is a perfect representation of both the jealousy and ambition that have driven Geoff to become the man that he is.

Geoff is a man of insatiable appetites, the sort of person who has to keep on moving. The sort of person who can never look back. His home, his family, the farm that they all live on, it’s not enough for him. So when the time comes for him to grow up, he decides to do so as far away as possible. There’s a place out there waiting for him to arrive. It goes by the name of Los Santos. So he moves to the city, leaving the green of the fields behind him.

*

If Geoff is green as the fields of his hometown, then Griffon is the colour of the sky from hers. She’s a city girl, through and through, but the city that she hails from is a no more a concrete jungle than the farmland that Geoff once called home. It’s a sprawling expanse of buildings and bodies, for sure, but the skyline sits low on the horizon, spreading outwards rather than upwards. 

She loves that city. She loves it with all her heart. It breaks into pieces when she has to leave, but she does have to leave, and she knows it. It’s always the same, new season, new city. Somehow she always seems to end up back there though. For her, it’s the place where all roads meet.

That is, until she finds another city to give her heart to. Or rather, until she finds a decent man, who just so happens to be the boss of the best damn crew in the whole city. She’ll meet him and Los Santos will seem to open up its arms to her; roads stretching out like veins, leading her to the beating heart of the place.

For now, she still has to get there. So she carries her heavy blue heart all the way through dozens of states; damned by her own hunger for freedom. At least the weather is stunning. She cruises along the coastal highway, warm breeze tousling her hair. The waves crash along the beach, a dazzling, sun-touched blue.

*

Jack is like a ray of sunshine. There’s no other way to describe them. They light up the darkest corners of every room with the most glorious yellow you’ve ever seen. They’re always smiling. The only time you’d ever find them without their characteristic grin is when they’re in the throes of, full on, head-tilted-back laughter.

But Gavin knows how even sunlight, often too bright to look at, can soften as evening draws ever near. And sometimes Jack is the palest shade of yellow. Normally it’s because of her, the girl in the sunflower dress. Jack says her name is Caiti, and though Gavin has only ever seen her once, he knows that Jack’s given themself over to her entirely. It’s a beautiful, yet utterly disarming thing. Gavin sort of envies them.

Jack mostly keeps their relationship with Caiti pretty secretive, but that’s only because they want to protect her. It slips a little whenever they finish up on a particularly messy job. Jack reflexively dials her number, and melts away to the sound of her voice. 

Often, they slip away to buy her some flowers. Sometimes roses, sometimes lilies, but her favourite, Gavin surmises through the frequency of their purchase, are daffodils. 

Gavin likes to imagine the way her face would light up when she receives them. How happy she would be, for both the flowers, and for Jack to be back with her, where she can keep them close; where she can keep them safe. 

In his mind’s eye Gavin sees how they fall together, just happy to be existing in the same space and time as the other. Jack always leaves before she awakes. Gavin knows this because Jack is always at the crew’s flat before he even wakes up. He wonders how much it must hurt to leave her. He marvels at how Jack still manages to be the most intense of all the colours. He tries to imagine what it must be like.

Jack buttons up their gaudy Hawaiian shirt, and glances over at the woman laying bed next to them. She’s still asleep, tiny puffs of air escaping from between her lips. The bright yellow daffodils on the bedside table still visible, even in the dark.

*

Meg used to be lilac. The softest shade of purple, all delicate beauty and gentleness. How quiet she was. It was almost like she was a shadow, a person with blurry edges, or a person who is not even a person at all. 

Things started changing after she met the crew. Running away from a controlling family to a new city several hundreds of miles away from home will do that. Gavin knows how distance can change a person. He knows it all too well.

Her colours become stronger as she becomes stronger. No more is she a gentle, malleable lilac. She moulds herself into a new person, and to Gavin’s eyes, a new colour; violet. It’s a royal colour, and she is a queen. Gavin suspects she might always have been, it just took her a while to notice it. 

Along with that comes the tattoo, and the nose ring, and the dyed hair. How wonderful it is, to be the person you’ve always wanted to be.

The skin on her hands is a dark shade of the same vibrant colour that now crowns her head. She twirls an errant strand around her fingers, smiling. Oh how the purple shines otherworldly, in the bright, artificial light.

*

The quiet kid from downtown Los Santos shines brighter than anyone Gavin has ever seen. He’s aglow with light, a white so pure Gavin is almost blinded by it. 

Ray is a crack shot with a sniper rifle. Where he learned to shoot like that, no one knows. He rarely shoots anyone, however, and he even goes as far as refusing to, point blank, on several occasions. Geoff thinks it a waste, Gavin thinks it a wonder. The others don’t really think about it at all. The kid is full of quirks, what’s one more to add to the list?

He’s a good guy, Gavin concludes one day, after a particularly taxing heist. It hits him like a freight train. Since moving to the city, he’d almost forgotten that good guys existed. But there Ray is, slightly sullen and more than a little bit grubby, but with a moral compass stronger than most. 

He disappears most evenings, and doesn’t reappear until early in the morning, much to Gavin’s dismay. He enjoys Ray’s company. Of course, Jack is nice too, but Ray is his own age, and he’s a quiet, peaceful soul. 

When he does come back, and Gavin is still up and wandering around, he sees him sitting on his own, in the living room. He never turns the light on, just sits in the dim column of light that streams in courtesy of the streetlights outside of the window. 

At his feet there’s normally a bag, and in it are spray cans. Gavin doesn’t know where it is that Ray goes, and he can only guess at what he gets up to. Sometimes, when they cruise around the city he sees a bit of graffiti, and tries to figure out whether Ray had any part in it.

He does know better than to interrupt though, so he stands quietly, and watches Ray until he eventually slinks away to bed. There’s normally a small sigh. And then he rubs his hands against his jeans, ridding himself of the white chalky paint that clings to his finger tips; that settles in the cracks of his skin.

*

She’s a warrior. Lindsay is the colour of a roaring flame. Gavin has never really liked the colour orange but god damn does that woman know how to wear it. There’s a wildness to her, something feral, something dangerous. She’s nice enough, of course, but tough as nails and too hot to the touch. 

She’s the brains and the beauty, there’s no denying that. She’s living proof that you can be everything all at once. And although Gavin is made equal parts terrified and uncomfortable by her presence, he can’t help but to respect her. It seems she commands this from them all.

She came to the crew already a force of nature. A hurricane in human skin that was ready to tear the city to pieces, with or without them. Geoff plays it safe and decides that he’d rather be on her good side.

The heists are all hers. Every job they undertake is carefully planned under her watchful gaze. And Geoff would never say it, but half of the crew’s success is down to her alone. 

She wears red, dyes her hair red and even paints her nails red, but Gavin associates her with orange anyway. It’s something to do with subtlety, he realises. She’s dangerous enough to be red, that’s for sure, but the quiet energy that surrounds her… the violence that lives within her, never quite reaches the surface. It bubbles away just underneath her skin.

Another successful heist, and although the rest of the crew is celebrating, all loud hoots and flailing limbs, she only smiles to herself. When they all pile into vehicles and drive home, she takes her own truck, and shoots off ahead of them all.

It never stops for her. Yes, the job might be over, and yes it went incredibly well, but that only means that she has to do even better the next time. So there’s little pause for her to pat herself on the back. 

She does stop once, pulling over onto the hard shoulder and walking out onto a nearby bridge. Her heels tap a rhythm on the tarmac, a steady pace, unwavering even as cars swerve around her. When she reaches the centre she breathes out one single shaky sigh. The world keeps on spinning, but she allows herself to stop, just for a moment. 

So she stands on the bridge, overlooking the water. The sun dances on the ripples as it sets in the distance. Her figure cuts a proud silhouette, hair whipped wild by the wind. The setting sun, once fierce, now casts a warm orange glow on her face.

*

You’d think he were red, the kind he smears on his skin, the kind that stains his nails. He stops off at a gas station on his way back to the city. He’s not wearing his mask but his face is thick with day old paint. He doubts anyone would know him this far out of the city limits anyway. 

He pulls in at a pump, watching as the dial on his fuel gauge ticks down from dangerous red to empty black. The total comes in at $50 dollars, but the gun in his jacket gives him a discount. The guy behind the counter begs him to take what he wants and leave. Please. Just leave. Please.

So he does. He takes the fuel, some Doritos, and the man’s life. A bullet to the brain, as fast a death as any. Ryan is feeling generous. He leaves a $5 dollar tip in the jar on the counter.

Gavin doesn’t know when it happens, but over time, Ryan turns darker, shade by shade. Oh yes, you’d think he were red; the violent, bloody kind. But take a look closer, and you’d see his soul is black. 

*

If it’s red you’re looking for, look no further than one Michael Jones. Gavin is afraid of him, to begin with, which is saying something, because even Ryan doesn’t scare him all that much. But Michael is terrifying, in that kind of brilliant, but also kind of crazy, way. He has nothing to lose and he lives his life accordingly. 

The first time Gavin sees his colours is mid-heist. Michael is the bomb guy. He’s charged with destroying the evidence, Geoff tells him to bring the building down once the crew are all out, regardless of who else is inside. 

The thought of it makes Gavin’s stomach heave. There will be a body count, and the image of all those people, lives over and bodies mangled, disturbs Gavin endlessly. Michael only laughs, and smiles his big, wide, shit eating grin. 

It takes Gavin a while to realise why, but when he does, things start to make a bit more sense. The world has taken everything away from the angry boy with the auburn curls and the starving smile. When Michael pushes the button, and watches the world explode around him, he is taking something back.

It’s over just like that, the way existence began, with a bang. The building has been destroyed, bricks and mortar brought to their knees. Michael claps his hands together and watches as red brick dust floats like a bloody mist through the air. 

*

He’s still trying to figure out who he is. He still can’t decide which colour best describes him. He tries them all on again, periwinkle sadness, the loneliness of crimson. He moves up and down the spectrum, again and again and again. 

None of them suit him. He fades back into nothingness. 

When he finally finds himself; he does so in the mirror, of all places. He realises that he was wrong and that he isn’t transparent at all. He himself is like the mirror, a reflection of the people, the colours that surround him.


End file.
